Online Dating + Childless Thoughts in New Beginnings

So after months upon months upon months of talking about it, I finally made an online profile. I’m not dead set on finding a serious relationship, but I realize I’ve become too comfortable in my cocoon, and I desperately need to be more social. If I find something serious in the process, great, but my primary objective is veering off the path of becoming a curmudgeon before my time.

Anyways, I decided on Match. As the saying goes, you get what you pay for, right? I even looked at online reviews of dating services, and Match consistently ranked very high. I didn’t expect finding my better half to be a cake walk, but just making contact is tough…and really confusing. I’ve gotten a lot of likes on my profile and pictures, but the few I appeared to have the most compatibility with didn’t respond to any of my replies. I didn’t bombard them? At least, I don’t think I did. I read their summaries about themselves and what they were looking for in a man, and then either paid a complement and/or asked a question about something interesting in their profiles (i.e., old TV shows they made a reference to or interesting usernames that might have hinted towards a hobby or interest).

Nothing. Of course, it’s only been a week, and logically their are plenty of possibilities why each woman wouldn’t respond, other than “this guy is as ugly as a mule’s butt and as boring as watching paint dry.” Maybe, she started seeing someone and doesn’t want to complicate things (or overexert herself) by seeing two people at once. Maybe the distance was too far. Maybe she has other plans or obligations taking priority over dating. I’m overthinking things, I know.

However, you know what boggles my mind in contrast with the women I’m seemingly compatible with giving me a wink and then silence? Women I have nothing in common with asking me out on dates! At least of couple of women conveyed an interest or flat out sent me an email asking for a date, and my reaction was “did you even read my profile?” The first girl was too young, 12 years my junior to be precise. Not that I have a problem with other 34 year olds dating a 22 year olds, but for my own comfort level, I’d like to stay within a decade in each direction. I’d probably make an exception if we were compatible by almost every other measurement. She also wanted to have children, and our values didn’t really align. The other woman was about 50 years old, and not a fit 50, either. Ugh.

I suppose what’s most frustrating are the super gorgeous girls Match teases me with. Match we’ll send me profiles of women its algorithms consider to have potential with me. Some of the girls will be 95% compatible with me, and I’ll open their profile to read “Wants kids: Definitely.” Not, “some day,” or “unsure”, or “I’ll tell you later.” “Definitely.” I’m thinking of one woman’s profile in particular as an example, and my gosh she’s soooo pretty. We’re talking super conducive to becoming twitterpated. Her profile said she was divorced, and all I could think was, “your ex husband must be blind, an idiot, or both.” There were other points of disconnect between us, too, so I’m not just being stubborn about one thing. Still, when her profile pops up among my suggestions, it’s hard not to look at her photo and let my heart race.

As an aside, I was thinking about my not wanting children, and I wonder if I’m really being nihilistic. In other words, everyone else wants them, and I don’t, so am I a horrible person? It’s just, I’ve never really wanted children. Dealing with all the grief like diapers, tantrums, sleepless nights, loss of health from prioritizing parenthood, made me want to opt out of the whole ordeal. As vain as it is, that last item is probably the biggest concern to me. I know myself. When I let myself fall out of shape, my anxiety, stress, fears, and depression take over. I guess it’s just that regular endorphin rush that keeps the ugly thoughts tamed. If I couldn’t maintain my health, I wouldn’t be the same person, and I certainly wouldn’t the same guy the mother of my children wanted to marry.

I’m not encouraged by how many of my friends had kids without my struggle and now seem to be operating at their breaking point of emotional exhaustion every day. I remember years ago after one of my friends, Chris, had his second child, he remarked to me, “You know, Rob, once you have kids, your bank account will be consistently drained, you’ll gain a bunch of weight, and you’ll be sick all the time, but none of that stuff really matters because you’ll love your kids.” I didn’t say anything, but my initial reaction was, “what was that you said about being broke, out of shape, and perpetually ill?” He ended up getting divorced years later. From the outside looking in, and at a distance (we hadn’t been in contact with one another for a while when it happened), it looked like the stresses of family and career broke his marriage.

Interestingly, enough, Chris and his wife were trying to wait to have kids, but they wanted them eventually. I wouldn’t call his children accidents, but they weren’t exactly planned. Contrast Chris with another of friend, Lauren. Lauren always wanted to have children. She wanted to:

1. Get married
2. Be married for a few years before she had her first child in her late twenties
3. Have her second and final child four years later so they’d be close enough in age to be friends but far apart so that she wouldn’t have two kids in college at the same time.
4. Do all of this while balancing her and her husband’s career

She got it. She got everything she wanted with the exception of having a boy and a girl when she kind of wanted two girls. As you can guess, she’s divorced. It was like he stresses that came with what she wanted killed her marriage. Now, she’s a little bit angry that she has to work to pay for everything she wanted and she can’t just be a full time homemaker. All I can do is read her Facebook posts and think, “I’m sorry that you’re stuck working to pay for the life you have, but this is what you said you wanted.” Also, I’ll think, “I’m pretty sure I told you how difficult parenthood would be, so you can’t say you weren’t warned.” I won’t actually tell her those things; doing so might give a conniption fit.

Seriously, though, Lauren and I used to…well…I’ll say we argued about having kids, but the discussion was much more friendly than that word suggests. We weren’t dating, partly because of that difference. She would say something to the affect of “it won’t be that bad, think of how cute they’ll be, you can just stay in shape by playing with your kids,” and so on. I remember one time, she was having problems with her boyfriend at the time. I won’t go into the specifics of their conflict, but I reminded her that she wanted kids and if the stress of comparing herself to her boyfriend’s ex was enough to cause this much strife, how would she respond to the actual stresses that come with a relationship that includes parenthood responsibilities. Her response, “But we would have a baby together, so that stuff wouldn’t bother me.”

All I could do is face palm. My point being, I don’t want to end up like her, miserable because I took on the responsibility of parenthood without realistic thoughts on the subject. Really, I stand the risk of turning out worse. She was just blinded by her instinctual feelings and naiveté. I’ve put considerably more thought into the issue, and if I wind up in the same hard spot, I can’t even blame my own ignorance. I knew what I wanted and what was best for me, but did the opposite without reason. Well, I guess having a wife to regularly make out with is a reason, but probably not a good enough reason to ignore what I know about myself.

To bring this monologue all the way back to my unsuccessful attempt at dating, I really hope my being forthcoming about not wanting children doesn’t make me undateable. I have reasons for wanting what I want (or not wanting what I don’t want, if you prefer). I think I’d make a good husband, provided she and I share that common ground. I suppose it’s best to honest up front and have the patience to wait. At least I’ll avoid wasting time in the wrong relationship.